October 2006

by John Cannizzo

Two students crouch over the shallow excavation and stare at the carpenter's level.

“This is OK," one says. The other is not sure.

They are building a small summer house. We built a lot of garden structures this summer.

In the morning when he arrives one of the students switches on a radio to his favorite station. It is distracting and the work requires concentration. The other student is quiet, furtive, shy. When we rest he rolls a cigarette. There is something calculating behind his watery grey eyes. If I attempted to paint them as pure introvert and a pure extravert I would be guilty of a pious fraud. Everyone is both.

Leveling is different from design. Your design may be better than mine. But levelness is the same for all. The word “Level" has many related meanings. Today we level ground to build a strong foundation. Standing on a level floor you feel the straightness derived from the horizon: where the sea meets the sky. It is totally objective. Different from design yet much design rests on it.

What level am I on? What have I achieved? You are either on a level or you are on your way up or down from one. On the way you are on a grade, not a level. Someone said that in order to change ourselves we must a least be at level 1, such as a person that pays their rent, feeds their kids, goes to work. To have this is already to have a lot.

In our ears is an instrument that is a tiny level. Our species possesses a particular balance that allows us to go on two legs. Our ability to balance ourselves on a variety of grades as well as to balance objects with our hands is unique. A violinist, juggler or gymnast can perform feats of balance that find no correspondence in the balance of the most sure footed animals.

I thought the leveling project would appeal to the more extraverted person less likely to look within himself and more likely to be involved with the objects of his surrounding. But he is less interested than the other student that filters the objective world of perception through his psyche first. His subjective approach to life is resignedly acquainted with tyrannical objectivity.

**All photos courtesy of John Cannizzo